


The Voice Within

by bluehappyking



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Agents of SHIELD, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, the voice within
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 13:25:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3530975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehappyking/pseuds/bluehappyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Christina Aguilera, The Voice Within- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA2k79EGHbc</p>
<p>Set after 2x12 AU. Jemma isn't coping and has been through a huge amount of suffering which she has done in silence. In the past, Fitz was always there for her. She needs a coping mechanism to link her back to her best friend. Plot twist at the end...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Voice Within

“I’ll do everything I can to keep her alive, excuse me,” Simmons said in an emotionless voice and left the plane before her eyes could let out her secret tears. She reached into the filing cabinet to find something to clean her hands which were completely covered in blood, frustrated when she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She pulled a small bit of cloth but it wasn’t nearly enough but then felt a hand on her shoulder and stopped. She knew who it was all too well and knew that she could break down in front of him. Her mouth wobbling, already to cry, she turned and looked into his blue eyes and let out a small sob - unable to hold it together and let him hold her instead. She didn’t want to get bloody hands on him, but Fitz didn’t seem to mind and held her tightly as she cried into him. She’d grown so close to Skye and now, to see her so helpless there. Simmons knew the real truth - Skye wasn’t going to make it. Fitz rubbed her back and stroked her hair and Simmons felt herself vulnerable but safe. It was okay to let it all out.

Fitz had always been there to comfort her. Before Skye had been shot when it was herself affected by the virus and everyone was concerned for her - she knew he would be there, even if he couldn’t hug her until she came back from the fall, completely cured. When she’d had nightmares and flashbacks, again, Fitz was there for her to hold her and calm her down. 

After the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., Simmons sobbed for hours, unable to comprehend, and was surprised when Fitz had tears too, but it was both of their lives that had been a lie. Then, when one of their own had been discovered to be HYDRA, she’d cried then too, but only a little but she’d been able to calm Fitz down and he was able to help her too. They hadn’t totally agreed on whether Ward was good or bad but he was still there to comfort her when they disagreed. 

And of course, those few moments in the pod when Fitz was ready to sacrifice himself. It was the saddest hug she’d ever recieved and Fitz, poor Fitz, was trying to hold his tears back as she begged him not to go. 

That was really the end of it all...or rather, the start...

The series of events that followed changed her life too fast and now, here she was in the familiar role that she’d seemed to have been labelled as. The bad guy.

Simmons was sat in her room, alone with tears in her eyes, looking for a tissue and her hands shaking with anger and sadness. Whilst Bobbi, Mack and Lance had all taken her side back then, they were taking a side she never thought she’d be on. Of course she didn’t want to hurt Skye and of course she’d try to help her, but Fitz didn’t understand that. 

He thought that Jemma wanted to run away from everything that was different and that she was fickle. But she wasn’t, and she’d never gotten the chance to explain...

“Fitz...” she put her head in her hands and sobbed. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be the monster everyone thought that she was. 

“Jemma?” she heard a soft voice at the door and looked up and saw Fitz.

“W...what are you doing here?” she asked and blinked back a few times. It had been a while.  
“You need me, don’t you? I...I haven’t been fair...” he pushed his hand back through his hair and Simmons, who didn’t want any further interruptions, shut the door and hovered there for a while before Fitz sat down on her bed and asked her to join him. “Look. I know, okay? I know, I shouldn’t have lied and I know that it wasn’t fair that I keep bringing up what you did before because I know why you left me.”

“But you don’t though, because you don’t let me explain,” Simmons said and sat down on the end of the bed. “We don’t talk anymore.” He looked at her and didn’t reply and she took the oppertunity to talk, but it was harder than she thought... “I’m hurting too and...”

“...and no one helped you. They all focussed on me because I’m meant to be the broken one.”

“You’re not, you’re not broken and I don’t ever want you to think that you are. And...as for Skye, I don’t want to hurt her...” 

“I know you don’t. I know you wouldn’t apply the same theory to Skye,” Fitz said and Simmons felt tears running down her cheeks. “I think maybe, maybe I’ve been too selfish and I think that you need to talk to me and tell me what you’ve been feeling because this isn’t you, Jemma. You know it isn’t, I know it isn’t. Something’s changed about you.” Fitz reached up and put a hand to the side of her face and Simmons shut her eyes to embrace it more clearly. 

“You’re lucky that I have a kettle in my room and enough tea for two people,” Simmons said quickly, getting up. She wasn’t ready to talk because she knew as soon as she did, she wouldn’t be able to hold it back. Would Fitz be able to handle her now? All the anger and sadness she had kept inside for all this time? He was dealing with his own problems and the last thing he needed was her accusing him and showing her hurt to him.

She turned on the kettle and leant on the side of her chest of drawers and sighed, accidentally letting out a sob. She covered her mouth and shook her head, looking up at the ceiling to dry her eyes, struggling for the tissue again.

It was then she felt the same hand on her shoulder and turned around again and looked back into his blue eyes - the memories flashing back of how much she’d wanted to save Skye and now...now Skye hated her. Fitz hated her and all this time she’d needed his comfort.

He didn’t even need to say any words and once again, all over again, Simmons finally let herself be vulnerable and broke down.

“There’s so...much I’ve...w...wanted to say...” she sobbed. Even though Fitz had been damaged by the pod incident, he was still stronger than her and he was still there for her. Despite everything, and Jemma needed him to be there. He was calm this time and he was going to let her talk.

“Take it slowly and tell me, you’ve waited for too long. It’s your turn to be saved now.”

Jemma still made the tea once she had calmed down and put it on the side, and finally knew that she couldn’t go back. Fitz wouldn’t let her even if she tried. Every time she halted, he ended her sentence, like he used to do and he kept one hand on her shoulder the whole time.

Simmons had felt so lonely at HYDRA and she’d struggled to sleep and eat out of that fear and worry for Fitz and getting caught. When she’d come back, she’d not been truly helped by the people she’d cared about who assumed she’d get back into her normal life as it was. She’d struggled, truly struggled every day being around a different Fitz to the one she’d left all those months ago and see the consequences of her actions. Their team were constantly getting hurt - Coulson in the memory machine, Mack with the possession, Tripp. She hadn’t told anyone that she’d seen his face there in the blackened dust and when she told him, he held her tighter. She was just angry at Raina and what had caused all this which is why she’d been that way with Skye. She finally told him that she never would’ve said those things if Skye hadn’t been the one who was affected. Simmons told him that she was confused and scared and unable to deal with all these changes to the world she knew and tried to learn about. 

“And you...you think that I left you because of the same reason. Because I can’t deal with change, but it’s not true, Fitz. I could see what I was doing to you. You were always trying to compete with me and you wanted to be up my standard. As long as I was there you could compare because you had someone to compare yourself with. We were always equals and that wasn’t a good goal for you to try to leap to. I could tell, you didn’t feel worthy and you were frustrated because you had me on this pedestal and it was too much for you. I had to go because I was making you worse, slowing you down. You needed to be away from me to heal...”

“And I’m getting there, but I’m okay as I am,” Fitz told her. “And Skye will be too.” Simmons nodded at that. “I thought it was because you didn’t feel the same way.”

Simmons looked at Fitz and knew as soon as he said it that she did. He was the one who was there for her at the moment and all those times before when she’d needed him. No one else - him. 

“I couldn’t burden you with any other ambitions. The last thing you needed then was being with me to complicate matters,” Simmons dried her eyes and put her cup of tea on the side. Fitz’s tea had gone completely cold and hadn’t been drunk.

“Now’s a good time to mention it, I think,” he told her and Simmons breathed out, feeling her heart lighter and Fitz rubbed her back again and stroked her hair and she let him hold her again, exactly like before. 

“It’s already night,” she looked out of the window and Fitz nodded. “Can you stay?” 

“Do you need me to stay?” he asked and she considered it, and yes, yes she did. She cautiously nodded and got up to draw the curtains. When she turned around, she already saw Fitz lying on her bed in the clothes he was wearing before. She asked him not to look as she put on pyjamas.

Simmons climbed into the bed. Without the use of her eyes, it was more noticeable to her what this really was.

“You should tell him,” Fitz’s voice said and Simmons looked into the darkness.

“I’m scared,” she whispered and reached out to the other pillow and cupped her hand around where her suffering mind had imagined Fitz’s cheek to be. She was so desperate to feel him through the air that when she focussed her thoughts (completely against the science she knew) - she imagined she could see him.

“He deserves to know,” the voice within was Fitz’s and she heard it almost as if it was real. 

She knew though that it wasn’t but she hadn’t been able to cope without it. She’d been so lonely at HYDRA and hadn’t been able to get through the days without imagining that he was still there beside her. Fitz had always been the one to calm her down, hold her when she needed to cry or just to talk to about how each day went. Fitz had been with her the whole time and Simmons had never been without him - not for at least ten years when they’d maybe had a few weeks away from seeing one another, but never without contact. 

From the moment she’d left, her first night alone, her mind had tricked her into coping by giving her some familiarity, even if she was just imagining it. She wasn’t going crazy, she’d hoped, but she’d needed him, and this was the only way she could have him now. In her mind. 

He was the only one that she could talk to now, there was no one else.

Tears filled her eyes again and she felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her closer.

“Don’t cry,” Fitz whispered to her and like the many nights she’d imagined him there before, he wrapped his arms around her and held her. 

“Am I crazy? I know you’re not real but I’ve become so reliant on you.”

“You’re not crazy, Jemma. This is just your way of coping. I’ll be here as long as it takes you to heal,” Fitz told her in reply. “And until you let the others see how vulnerable you are, I don’t think that you’ll be ready to let this go. You should tell them. Tell Fitz at least. In the morning.”

“In the morning,” Simmons repeated at the same time.

She leant on her pillow and felt safe. She could have this one night at least. After a while, she relaxed and shut her eyes, imagining him stroking her shorter hair.

“Goodnight...” she whispered but she didn’t need a reply as she drifted into sleep and the feeling of him next to her faded.

He was what she needed now. It was just her way of coping...

-The End-


End file.
